Piranha to Scurfy by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online Page B

though he had never been able to see it, but a woman of neither education nor discernment, would dwindle away into the mists of the past. Above all, that lantern-shaped face, that monstrous jaw and vaulted forehead, looming so shockingly above its owner’s blood-colored works, would lose its menace and assume a merely arrogant cast. But before he reached home, while he was still in the train, Ambrose, thinking about it—he could think of nothing else—knew with a kind of sorrowful resignation that no such letter would be waiting for him. No such letter would come the next day, or the next. By his own foolhardy move, his misplaced
courage,
by doing his duty, he had seen to that.
    And yet it had scarcely been all his own doing. If that retarded woman, his cousin’s doll-faced wife, had only had the sense to ask Marle to inscribe the book “For Susan,” rather than “For Susan Ribbon,” little harm would have been done. Ribbon could hardly understand why she had done so, unless from malice, for these days it was the custom, and one he constantly deplored, to call everyone from the moment you met them, or even if you only talked to them on the phone, by their first names. Previously, Marle would have known his address but not his appearance, not seen his face, not established him as a real and therefore vulnerable person.
    No letter had come. There were no letters at all on the doormat, only a flyer from a pizza takeaway company and two hire-car cards. It was still quite early, only about six. Ribbon made himself a pot of real tea—that woman used
tea bags
—and decided to break with tradition and do some work. He never worked on a Sunday evening, but he was in need of something positive to distract his mind from Kingston Marle. Taking his tea into the front room, he saw Marle’s book lying on the coffee table. It was the first thing his eye lighted on. The Book. The awful book that had been the ruin of his weekend. He must have left
Demogorgon
on the table when he’d abandoned it in a kind of queasy disgust halfway through. Yet he had no memory of leaving it there. He could have sworn he had put it away, tucked it into a drawer to be out of sight and therefore of mind. The dreadful face, fish-belly white between the bandages, leered at him out of the star-shaped hole in the red-and-silver jacket. He opened the drawer in the cabinet where he thought he had put it.There was nothing there but what had been there before, a few sheets of writing paper and an old diary of Mummy’s. Of course there was nothing there, he didn’t possess two copies of the horrible thing, but it was going in there now ...
    The phone rang. This frequent event in other people’s homes happened seldom in Ribbon’s. He ran out into the hall where the phone was and stood looking at it while it rang. Suppose it should be Kingston Marle? Gingerly he lifted the receiver. If it was Marle he would slam it down fast. That woman’s voice said, “Ambrose? Are you all right?”
    “Of course I’m all right. I’ve just got home.”
    “It was just that we’ve been rather worried about you. Now that I know you’re safely home, that’s fine.”
    Ribbon remembered his manners and recited Mummy’s rubric. “Thank you very much for having me, Susan. I had a lovely time.”
    He would write to her, of course. That was the proper thing. Upstairs in the office he composed three letters. The first was to Susan.
    21 Grove Green Avenue
London E11 4ZH
     
    Dear Susan,
    I very much enjoyed my weekend with you and Frank. It was very enjoyable to take a stroll with Frank and take in “the pub” on the way. The ample food provided was tip-top. Your friends seemed charming people, though I cannot commend their choice of reading matter!
    All is well here. It looks as if we may be in for another spell of hot weather.
    With kind regards to you both,

Yours affectionately,

Ambrose
     
    Ribbon wasn’t altogether pleased with this. He took out “very much” and